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Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy

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Image caption: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Points at a Map of the Sinai Peninsula during a Meeting with President Gerald R. Ford and Bipartisan Congressional Leaders in the Cabinet Room in 1975. National Archives.

A book talk with Ambassador Martin Indyk

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*Please note, this event is open to UCLA students, faculty and staff only. Please fill out your daily COVID-19 Symptom Monitoring Survey before you arrive and make sure to wear a medical-grade mask, as mandated by UCLA.
 

ABOUT THE BOOK

“A wealth of lessons for today, not only about the challenges in that region but also about the art of diplomacy . . . the drama, dazzling maneuvers, and grand strategic vision.”—Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker

A perceptive and provocative history of Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic negotiations in the Middle East that illuminates the unique challenges and barriers Kissinger and his successors have faced in their attempts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013—has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand.
 
Now, in an attempt to understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, he returns to the origins of American-led peace efforts and to the man who created the Middle East peace process—Henry Kissinger. Based on newly available documents from American and Israeli archives, extensive interviews with Kissinger, and Indyk’s own interactions with some of the main players, the author takes readers inside the negotiations. Here is a roster of larger-than-life characters—Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, and Kissinger himself.
 
Indyk’s account is both that of a historian poring over the records of these events, as well as an inside player seeking to glean lessons for Middle East peacemaking. He makes clear that understanding Kissinger’s design for Middle East peacemaking is key to comprehending how to—and how not to—make peace.

 

ORDER THE BOOK

Order Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy from Penguin Random House.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martin Indyk is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, and special assistant to President Clinton. Previously, Indyk was executive vice president of the Brookings Institution, where he had also served as vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program and the founding director of its Center for Middle East Policy. He served as President Obama’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014. He lives in New York.

 

 

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Kal Raustiala holds the Promise Institute Chair in Comparative and International Law at UCLA Law School and is a Professor at the UCLA International Institute, where he teaches in the Program on Global Studies. Since 2007 he has served as Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations. From 2012-2015 he was UCLA’s Associate Vice Provost for International Studies and Faculty Director of the International Education Office. Professor Raustiala's research focuses on international law, international relations, and intellectual property. He is currently writing a biography of the late UN diplomat, civil rights figure, and UCLA alum Ralph Bunche for Oxford University Press.